I had the good fortune to be the last apprentice taken on by William Moennig III. Over the sixteen years that I worked for him and with him he was very consistent. He was tough, demanding and uncompromising,which is everything you want a mentor to be.His ability to take the long view with an apprentice grew out of a deep sense of time and perspective that came with being the head of a 100 year old family business and a legacy of violin making that stretched back 12 generations. Not only was Bill the head of a prestigious shop, he had studied with the leading European masters of his day. He often told fond, interesting stories of his training in Mirecourt, France with Amadee Dieudonne ,(where he was a bench mate with Rene Morel),and time spent learning and working with Aschauer in Mittenwald, Vidoudez in Switzerland and Moller in Holland.He was a man of stature that you did not want to let down.
Bill was,deep down, an artistic person and I think he responded to my training and interest in art. He had a great ability to take a chance on a person:sink or swim. You progressed under the watchful and helpful eyes of everyone in the shop and you quickly learned not to let anything leave your bench that you were not not completely satisfied with.I gauged my progress by the instruments I was handed. As your skills evolved you were handed ever finer instruments until one day, many years later, you were handed a fine instrument that needed major work and then you knew.
I am most grateful to Bill for his long,patient stewardship through those years. Though the progress came from my own hard work, his guidance and example put me on a path that I am still on today. Now as I merge my skills and craftsmanship with the running of a business I am increasingly grateful for the opportunity that I had to learn in an atmosphere where the artistry was central and all the business aspects grow from that source. Never the other way around.
I go on now on my own with a blueprint of how it should be and like any true mentor they are never left behind
